Property or money given to a court, to
ensure that an accused person will appear for
trial. A prisoner who posts bail is allowed
to leave jail, but if she flees, the court
confiscates her goods. The major benefit of
bail is that it allows a person to await
trial at home, rather than in prison.

For a Witch, bail could spell the
difference between life and death. Early
modern jails were lethal. Food and living
conditions were hellish, and jails were
periodically swept by plagues. It could take
up to a year for a Witch's case to come to
trial. If you posted bail, you could spend
that time in your home rather than in a
disease-ridden cell.

Bail also held out the hope of escape.
During the Salem Witch Trials, several
Witches who were released on bail fled to New
York to avoid trial. If you were wealthy
enough to post bail and willing to lose the
money you placed as surety, it was often
quite easy to escape.

Unfortunately, bail wasn't a possibility
for most Witches. Many areas didn't allow it.
Moreover most Witches were far too poor to
post bail. However in the regions where it
was allowed, bail saved the lives of
wealthier Witches.

Banishment

Being forbidden from returning to a
certain area.

On rare occasions, convicted Witches were
told to leave town and never come back. As
you might guess, this was a rare punishment.
Occasionally banishment would be one of
several penalties imposed by the Inquisition
(along with say, penance and fines). The
Inquisition recognized that once a person had
a reputation for being a Witch, he often had
great difficulty fitting back into village
society. By forcing convicted Witches to
relocate, the Inquisition hoped to help them
escape their reputations.

That was the theory. In reality, however,
banishment drove a Witch away from his
family, friends, and any property he may have
owned. And it's not clear that it served any
useful purpose. Many banished Witches ended
up accused again in their new communities.

Switzerland is the only country where
banishment was a common penalty -- and there,
it was afflicted on *acquited* Witches, not
convicted ones! When a Swiss court thought
that there was a lot of evidence against a
Witch but not enough for conviction, it often
banished the suspect to another community. So
you could be found "not guilty" of
the charge, but still be driven away from
your home and family.

Bell, Book, and Candle

Part of the Catholic ritual of
excommunication.

Normally only individuals are
excommuniciated (expelled from the Church.
However, the Church also has a form of
excommunication called "suo
genere", excommunication "by
kind". Under this second form, entire
categories of people are excommunicated. For
instance, all thieves, all prostitutes, all
homosexuals -- or all Witches. During the
Middle Ages and early modern period, priests
went through a ritual which symbolically cast
these folk out of the Church. An
excommunicate is "dead" to the
Church. He is forbidden from taking part in
the Church's rituals, should be shunned by
all right-believing Christians, and will
assumedly go to Hell upon his death.

This rite was sometimes called
"excommunication by bell, book, and
candle." The priest stood at the altar,
which held the mass book, a bell, and a
burning candle. First, he read the sentence
of excommunication from the book. Next he
rang the bell, symbolically announcing the
excommunicate's "death". Finally he
blew out the candle, "snuffing out"
the sinner.

Excommunication is a dramatic cursing
ritual, and had a great impact on popular
imagination. No one's sure why "bell,
book, and candle" came to be associated
with Witches rather than with the other types
of sinners named in this ritual. But that
does seem to be the origin of the phrase.

Benandanti

Literally, "the Good-Walkers."
Pagan or Christo-Pagan Witches of northern
Italy.

The Benandanti appear in a series of 16th
century trials run by the Italian
Inquisition. They were village healers,
specializing in cures, charms, and divining
the names of "black" Witches who
had cursed people. Interestingly, the
Benandanti did not consider themselves
Witches. They drew sharp distinctions between
themselves and the "evil" Strega,
or Witches, who they claimed harmed people.

Benandanti were generally born, not made.
A child who was born with a caul (fetal
membrane) across his or her face was destined
to become a Benandante. As an adult, the
child's spirit would begin to leave his body
during the Ember Days (quarterly periods of
fasting in the Catholic Church). Oftentimes
the soul left their body in the shape of a
small animal, such as a butterfly or mouse.

In this spiritual form, the Benandanti
performed sacred tasks. Usually men met in
the fields and banded together to fight
against the Strega, who attempted to blight
the crops. They fought with fennel stalks,
while the Witches held sorghum blades. If the
Witches won the battle, the crops withered
and the village starved. A victory by the
Benandanti assured a year of plenty.

Female Benandanti normally had other
duties. When they left their bodies, they
travelled to meet a Goddess, called a variety
of names like Abundia or Irodiana. This
Goddess led a procession of spirits, animals,
and fairies. Benandanti could join Her
travels and learn which villagers were going
to die in the upcoming year.

The Benandanti came to the attention of
the Inquisition in the late 16th century.
(See Paolo Gasparutto's biography for one of
the earliest trials) The Inquisition
discouraged these "Pagan" beliefs
sharply, but did not kill any of the
Benandanti. However, under pressure from the
Inquisition, the Benandanti began to
reinterpret their old beliefs. They drew
sharper and sharper lines between themselves
and the Witches. Originally the Strega were
seen as semi-honorable enemies. As the
Inquisition stressed the horrid things
Witches did throughout Europe, the Benandanti
began to condemn Witches more harshly. In the
early trials, almost none of the stereotypes
about Witches appear; the later trials are
full of them.

The Benandanti appear to have died out in
the 17th century. As the trials continued,
people began to confuse the "evil"
Witches with the "good" Benandanti.
To reclaim their "good" reputation,
the Benandanti emphasized how evil the
Witches were, and spread many tales about the
horrors they inflicted on the village
(horrors, I might add, that only the
Benandanti could save the villagers from).
They also began to accuse Witches
aggressively. But their attempts to focus
hostility on Strega, not themselves,
back-fired. The Inquisition usually ignored
their accusations, and the villagers were
incensed at the discord and strife the
Benandanti caused by accusing other villagers
of Witchcraft. Their reputation fell further,
and they disappear from our records within a
century or so of their first trials.

Were the Benandanti Pagans? Many modern
Pagans would say yes, since they communed
with the Goddess Irodiana. But the Benandanti
considered themselves good Christians. When
an inquisitor snarled that it was not
Christian to fight for the crops, one
confused Benandante responded, "Why
would God want the crops to fail?" Some
said that God called them to their duties,
and none appear to have had problems honoring
both Irodiana and the Christian God. When the
Inquisition insisted that you could not do
both, many Benandanti gradually came to
believe that they were not Christians. But
the ones who did assumed that that made them
Satanists, not Pagans. They abandonned their
earlier beliefs and were reconciled to the
Catholic Church.

Black Book

In Christian demonology, a book listing
the names of all Witches in an area.

The Black Book is a common Witchcraft
stereotype in Protestant countries, probably
because it is a diabolic parody of "The
Book of Life." According to the Bible,
God has a Book of Life. The names of the
Elect, the handful of people who will go to
Heaven, are written within it. The Book of
Life plays a big role in Protestant and
Puritan theology. Since Witchcraft
stereotypes are often simple parodies of
Christian beliefs, it's no surprise that
Protestant Witches were commonly said to sign
the reverse of the Book of Life. A Witch who
inscribes her name within the Black Book will
assuredly go to Hell, just as a person
written in the Book of Life will go to
Heaven. (The Black Book occasionally appears
in Catholic areas too, just as the Book of
Life does. But both Books play a much smaller
role in Catholicism.)

No Witch hunter ever found a Black Book,
and we have no evidence that they really
existed. Occasionally Witch hunters
confiscated books from Witches' houses, but
they were all grimoires of ceremonial magick,
math or astrology books, or treatises on
healing.

In the 1920's, historian Margaret Murray
suggested a radical new interpretation of the
Black Book. She claimed that the Black Book
was basically a Pagan "mass book",
listing the rituals and spells of a coven.
Gerald Gardner affirmed this, equating the
Black Book with his tradition's Books of
Shadows. However Murray and Gardner's
descriptions of the Black Book directly
contradict the descriptions from the Burning
Times. According to all early descriptions,
the Black Book was not a collection of spells
and rituals -- it was simply a list of names.
By signing this book, the Witch gave her soul
to Satan.

On the surface, Murray's theory doesn't
sound that unreasonable. But it's terribly
anachronistic. During the Burning Times, very
few people could read. Even literate people
often couldn't write. Therefore it's hard to
believe that Witches, who generally came from
the lower classes, would keep diaries of
their spell work. Moreover owning a Black
Book would be suicidal. If a Witch hunter
ever captured such a manuscript, it would
mean instant death for the owner and anyone
listed in its pages. Finally, there's the
fact that no one ever found a Black Book,
although hunters did find grimoires and
herbal tracts. So it seems safe to say that
the Black Book was not a Book of Shadows, nor
was it a real part of Witchcraft traditions.
It was simply another Christian fantasy about
how Witches parodied Christian rites.

"Black" magick (See
Maleficia)

(Books of Shadows, Black masses, Burning
at the stake, and more to come. <g>)